As it might be supposed, Monsieur Revel and his grandchild had no desire
to remain in Government-house a moment longer than was necessary, as
Afra was obliged to leave it. Afra's last care, before quitting Cap,
was to see that her friends were properly escorted to their home.
Euphrosyne was still struggling with the grief of saying farewell to
Afra, when she entered the pleasant sitting-room at home; but she smiled
through her tears when she saw how cheerful it looked. There was a
mild, cool light in the room, proceeding from the reflection of the
evening sunshine from the trees of the convent garden. The blinds were
open; and the perspective of one of the alleys was seen in the large
mirror on the wall--the shrubs noiselessly waving, and the gay flowers
nodding, in a sunlight and breeze which were not felt within.
Euphrosyne's work lay upon the table; the needle sticking in the very
stitch of embroidery at which she had laid it down, when she went to see
if her grandfather was awake, on the morning of their alarm. Some loose
music had been blown down from the stand upon the floor; and the bouquet
of flowers was dead, the water dried up, and the leaves fallen to dust;
but when these were removed, there were no further signs of neglect and
desertion.
"How bright, how natural everything looks!" cried Euphrosyne. "I do
love this room. This is the place that we thought was to be sacked and
burnt! I won't believe such nonsense another time. I never will be
frightened again. Grandpapa, do not you love this room?"
"It is a pretty room, my dear; and it looks very bright when you are in
it."
"Oh, thank you!" she cried, dropping a sportive curtsey.
"And now, will you look; at my work--(sit down here)--and tell
me--(where are your glasses?)--tell me whether you ever saw a prettier
pattern. It is a handkerchief fit for a princess."
"It is very prettily worked, my dear. And whom is it for? Some very
elegant lady. Is it for the First Consul's lady? They say she is the
most elegant lady in the world--though she is a Creole, like you, my
darling. Is your pretty handkerchief for her?"
"No, grandpapa. I dare say she has all the ladies in France to work for
her. I should like, if you have no objection, to send this to Madame
L'Ouverture!"
"To Madame L'Ouverture. Why? Has not she daughters to work
handkerchiefs for her, and plenty of money to buy them? Why should you
prick your fingers in her service?"
"I should like that L'Ouverture himself should observe, some day, that
she has a beautiful handkerchief; and then, if he should ask, he would
find out that there is a little Creole girl who is very grateful to him
for his generosity to her colour."
"Do not speak of colour, child. What expressions you pick up from Afra,
and such people! It is our distinction that we have no colour--that we
are white."
"That is the distinction of the nuns, I know; but I hoped it was not
mine yet. I do not forget how you pinch my cheek sometimes, and talk
about roses."
"What is there? What do I see?" cried the old man, whose mind seemed
open to everything agreeable that met his observation, on his return
home. "Are those the same little birds that you were wooing the other
morning? No creature that has ever seen you, my dear, ever forgets you.
Nothing that you have spoken to ever deserts you. Shy creatures, that
are afraid of everybody else, haunt you."
"Oh! you are thinking of the little spotted fawn."
"Spotted fawn or squirrel--baby or humming-bird--it is always the same,
child. They all come to you. I dare say these little creatures have
been flitting about the balcony and these rooms, ever since we went
away. Now they have found you."
"They do not seem to care much about me, now we have met," said
Euphrosyne. She followed them softly to the balcony, and along it, as
far as the window of Monsieur Revel's room. There she found, stuck in
the bars of the balcony, a rather fresh branch of orange-blossoms.
While she was examining this, in some surprise, old Raphael spoke to her
from below. He said he had made bold to climb up by his ladder, twice a
day, with something to entice the birds to that window; as he supposed
that, was what she wished, if she had been at home. The abbess had
given him leave to take this liberty.
"There!" said Monsieur Revel, when she, flew to tell him, "there is
another follower to add to your fawns and kittens. Old Raphael is
considered a crusty fellow everywhere; and you see how different he is
with you!"
"I am very glad," declared Euphrosyne. "It is a pretty sight to amuse
you with, every morning when you wake. It is kind of Raphael; and of
the abbess too."
"I am pleased that the abbess and you should be good friends,
Euphrosyne, because--Ah! that is the way," he said, in a mortified tone,
and throwing himself back in his chair, as he followed with his eyes the
flittings of the girl about the room, after her birds. "You have got
your own way with everybody, and we have spoiled you; and there is no
speaking to you upon a subject that you do not like. You will not hear,
though it is a thing that lies heavy at the heart of a dying old man."
"I will hear you, if you talk to me all my life," said Euphrosyne, with
brimming eyes, seating herself on a low stool at the old man's knees.
"And if you hear me, you will not give me a grave, steady answer."
"Try me," said she, brushing away the gathering tears. "I am not crying
about anything you are going to say; but only because--Oh, grandpapa!
how could you think I would not listen to you?"
"Well, well, my love! I see that you are willing now. You remember
your promise to enter the convent, if I desired it."
"Yes."
"You talk of nothing being changed by our alarm, two days ago, because
this table stands in the middle of the room, and the ants and beetles
have not carried off your pretty work. Hey!"
"May I speak, grandpapa?"
"Speak."
"I said so because nobody's house is burnt, or even robbed; and nobody
has been killed, or even hurt."
"But, nevertheless, there is a great change. Our friends, my old
friends, all whom I feel I could rely upon in case of need, are gone to
France with Hedouville."
"Oh, grandpapa! very few whites are gone--they were chiefly mulattoes
who went with Hedouville; and so many whites remain! And though they
are not, except, perhaps, Monsieur Critois, exactly our friends, yet we
can easily make acquaintance with them."
"No, no, child. If they were not upstarts, as some of them are, and
others returned emigrants, of whom I know nothing, it is too late now
for me to make now friends. My old companions are gone, and the place
is a desert to me."
His hands hung listlessly, as he rested on the arms of his chair.
Euphrosyne looked up in his face, while she said, as well as she could
for tears, "If you feel it so now, what will it be when I am shut up in
the convent, and you will hardly ever see me?"
"That is no affair of yours, child. I choose that you should go."
"Whose affair is it, if it is not mine? I am your grandchild--your only
one; and it is my business, and the greatest pleasure I have in the
world, to be with you, and wait upon you. If I leave you, I shall hear
my poor mother reproaching me all day long. Every morning at my
lessons, every night at my prayers, I shall hear her saying, `Where is
your grandfather? How dare you desert him when he has only you left?'
Grandpapa, I shall be afraid to sleep alone. I shall learn to be afraid
of my blessed mother."
"It is time you were sent somewhere to learn your duty, I think. We are
at a bad pass enough; but there must be some one in the colony who can
tell you that it is your duty to obey your grandfather--that it is your
duty to perform what you promised him."
"I can preach that myself, grandpapa, when there is nobody else who can
do it better. It is just what I have been teaching little Babet, this
month past. I have no more to learn about that; but I will tell you
what I do want to learn--whether you are most afraid of my growing up
ignorant, or--(do just let me finish, and then we shall agree
charmingly, I dare say)--whether you are most afraid of my growing up
ignorant, or unsteady, or ill-mannered, or wicked, or what? As for
being unsafe, I do not believe a word of that."
"Everything--all these things, child. I am afraid of them all."
"What, all! What a dreadfully unpromising creature I must be!"
"You know you must be very ignorant. You have had no one to teach you
anything."
"Then I will go to the convent to study for four, six, eight, twelve
hours a day. I shall soon have learned everything in the world at that
rate: and yet I can go on singing to you in the evenings, and bringing
your coffee in the mornings. Twelve hours' study a day may perhaps make
me steady, too. That was the next thing, was it not?"
"Now have done. Say only one thing more--that you will perform your
promise."
"That is a thing of course; so I may just ask one other thing. Who is
to wait upon you in my place? Ah! I see you have not fixed upon any
one yet; and, let me tell you, it will be no easy matter to find one who
makes coffee as I do. Then, you have been waited upon by a slave all
your life. Yes, you have; and you have a slave now sitting at your
knee. People do not like being slaves now-a-days--nobody but me. Now I
like it of all things. So, what a pity to change!"
"I know," said the old man, sighing, "that I am apt to be peremptory. I
know it is difficult to please me sometimes. It is very late in life--I
am very old to set about improving: but I will try not to hurt any one
who will wait upon me, as I am afraid I have often hurt you, my dear. I
will make any effort, if I can only feel that you are safe. Some one
has been telling you stories of old times, I see. Perhaps you can ask
any servant that we may engage--you may make it your request that she
will bear with me."
"Oh, grandpapa! Stop, grandpapa! I cannot bear it," cried the sobbing
girl. "I never will joke again, if you do not see that it is because I
love you so, that I will venture anything rather than leave you. We all
love you dearly. Pierre would not for the world live with anybody else.
You know he would not. And that is just what I feel. But I will do
everything you wish. I will never refuse again--I will never jest, or
try, even for your own sake, to prevent your having all your own way.
Only be so kind, grandpapa, as never to say anything against yourself
again. Nobody else would dare to do such a thing to me, and I cannot
bear it."
"Well, well, love! I see now that no one has been babbling to you. We
will never quarrel any more. You will do as I wish, and we will have no
more disputing. Are they bringing our coffee?"
When Euphrosyne came out from placing her grandfather's pillows, and
bidding him good-night, she found Pierre lingering about, as if wanting
to speak to her.
"Have you anything to say to me. Pierre?"
"Only just to take the liberty of asking, Mademoiselle, whether you
could not possibly gratify my master in the thing he has set his heart
upon. If you could, Mademoiselle, you may rely on it, I would take
every care of him in your absence."
"I have no doubt, Pierre, of your doing your part."
"Your part and mine are not the same, I know, Mademoiselle. But he is
so persuaded of there being danger for you here, that everything you do
for him goes to his heart."
"Have _you_ that idea, Pierre?"
"Indeed, Mademoiselle, I know nothing about it--more than that it takes
a long time for people in a town, or an island, to live comfortably
together, on equal terms, after having all their lives looked upon one
another as tyrants and low revengeful servants."
"I do not think any one looks on me as a tyrant, or would think of
hurting poor grandpapa or me. How you shake your head, Pierre! We have
lived seven years in peace and quiet--sometimes being afraid, but never
having found cause for fear. However, if grandpapa really is uneasy--"
"That is the point, Mademoiselle. He is so."
"Do you suppose I could see the abbess, if I were to go to the convent
to consult her? It is not late."
"If the Dumonts were but here still!" said Pierre--"only next door but
one! It was a comfort to have them at hand on any difficulty."
"If they were here, I should not consult them. They were so prejudiced
against all the mulattoes, and put so little trust in L'Ouverture
himself--as indeed their going off in such a hurry with Hedouville
proves--that I should not have cared for their opinion to-night.
Suppose you step to the convent, Pierre, and ask whether the lady abbess
could see me for half-an-hour on business. If I am to leave grandpapa,
I should like to tell him in the morning that it is all settled."
Pierre went with alacrity, and was back in three minutes, when he found
Euphrosyne shawled and veiled for the visit. The lady awaited her.
"What can I do for you, my child?" said the abbess, kindly seating
Euphrosyne beside her, in her parlour.
"You will tell me what you think it is my duty to do, when I have told
you my story. I know I have laughed and joked too much about this very
matter; and that partly because I had a will of my own about it. But it
is all serious enough now; and I really do wish to find out my duty upon
it."
"In order to do your duty, whatever it may cost you?"
"Certainly."